Sometimes we make up stories to reinforce our beliefs, sometimes just to make sure there’s someone on our side. One of these stories might be that I have Jedi powers, another might be that animals give us their lives for our consumption. (As if a cow ever nobly sacrificed herself for your hamburger like Obi Wan did to beat the Empire!) Isn’t it odd that somehow we “know” what cows want despite not being able to speak cow at all?
I’ve heard the argument that animals have a better quality of life with us than if they were out in nature. That’s a huge assumption. First, that the corporations in charge of conceiving, growing, and killing these animals to make a profit are at all concerned with the animal’s comfort; and second, that we have a right to control their death when we engineered their birth strictly for that purpose.
I think that giving these animals a better life would include letting them live past their Ideal Kill Weight. Maybe that’s just me.
The cows in this cartoon were compensated fairly based on current Hollywood acting rates… that is, they got a lot of moo-la.